Remote access VPN for smart phones

Demand for the ability to push applications out to smart phone users led to Aventail extending its remote access suite to include Connect Mobile, which is in beta now and expected to hit the market in mid-summer. It is compatible with both Windows Mobile 5 and the new Windows Mobile 6.“There has been a greater recognition of mobile devices and smart phones as part of the remote access infrastructure,” said Aventail’s director of product marketing, Chris Witeck. “The importance of mobile devices is that they’re even more mobile than laptops, and more and more employees have access. Windows Mobile is another platform that needs secure applications.”

The company said that it is the only SSL VPN vendor offering a smart phone solution right now. “There hasn’t been a lot of activity,” said Witeck.

Connect Mobile has many security features, according to Witeck. “The system can take a look at the phone and identify it and determine if it is secure – whether it has anti-virus, whether there is an IT-trusted watermark,” he said.

“It’s a highly configurable product,” according Sarah Daniels, vice-president of marketing, who said that the IT manager has a variety of access controls. “You can set the conditions for which access is immediately denied.” The IT manager can also apply settings that allow users to only access certain applications. “This way, the IT manager can consider the right level of security for that particular user, and what applications work on the mobile phone,” said Witeck.

He stressed the consistency of the solution, which works between different networks, and acts as a single integrated solution (which can be meshed with Aventail’s other Microsoft-based remote access products, too). Daniels said that this offers a significant cost advantage over “niche” players like Research in Motion, which require the purchasing and setting up of separate infrastructure.

Set-up can be aided by Aventail’s people, but a wizard makes for an easy integration, according to Witeck.

Jonathan Perret, IT Remote Connectivity analyst at Chevron PetroChemical, a joint venture between parent company Chevron and ConocoPhillipsSP, said his company has been actively banning its employees from using smart phones and PDAs – including the popular Research In Motion BlackBerry – for the last several years. Despite many requests by individual users to bring their personal BlackBerry devices into the office, the firm waited until it could get in hand Windows Mobile devices that would allow for enforcement of the same types of policies it has created for securing its desktops. “We knew we would only use Windows Mobile, and we waited for it because it’s the platform we felt we could secure most easily and at the lowest cost,” Perret said. “This process of adopting smart phones is all about extending your network onto a new platform and addressing the challenges of that platform, and we felt Windows Mobile presented fewer challenges.”

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Jim Love, Chief Content Officer, IT World Canada

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